Miscellany: gaps in evolution cause discontinuity (General)

by dhw, Saturday, June 19, 2021, 11:16 (1251 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The gap is complexity, not time. After over 150 years of hunting the gap persists, the fossils are not there.

dhw: The gap is lack of fossils to prove that one species developed from another. Why do you think there should be fossils of organisms that lived 540 million years ago? Some scientists believe that 10 million years is not long enough for the development of all the complexities of the new Cambrian species. I’ll assume from your non-response that you do not regard the time as inadequate.

DAVID: Time is not the issue and I don't think the fossils are there. Why do you think they should be there?

I don’t! That’s why I asked you the now bolded question above!

DAVID: My Grand Canyon experience tells me the boundary line is quite clear between the two layers and the Chinese discoveries have only increased the complexity gap.

I don’t know why you assume that every organism that ever lived must have visited the Grand Canyon and left a fossil or two behind.

dhw: If God is capable of designing cellular intelligence, why do you dismiss Shapiro’s theory and cling to your equally unconfirmed theory – that God designed every species individually – which raises insoluble problems of logic when combined with your other beliefs? Please bear in mind that Shapiro’s theory does not exclude God.

DAVID: I know that. I don't dismiss his theory. It is in my book!! I dismiss your extrapolations of his theory.

What extrapolations? The quotes could hardly be clearer: he believes that cellular intelligence produced the “novelties” that resulted in speciation. What have I added?

DAVID: All of the new fossils support the complexity gap. All you can do is hope with Darwin.

dhw: I am not “hoping”, I am merely theorizing. What you call the “complexity gap” is simply another way of saying that we do not have a complete fossil record of how less complex organisms evolved into more complex organisms. And you take this to mean that such fossils do not exist and therefore the more complex organisms must have been separately designed. We have no way of knowing what fossils do or don’t exist, and we have no right to assume that after 540 million years there would be any fossils anyway.

DAVID: But the fossils exist and the complexity gap worsens.

This is getting silly. We only know of the fossils that have been found. We do not know if there are others, but even if there are no more to be discovered, that does not prove that no other life forms existed.

DAVID: The point is the gaps require a designer.

dhw: The point is that you are tying yourself in knots over what constitutes continuity, and I am trying to straighten out the mess.

dhw: Ten million years is an enormous expanse of time in terms of generations of intelligent organisms adapting to or exploiting new conditions. Ignoring Shapiro's theory does not invalidate it.

DAVID: The 10 million years is in the start of the Cambrian and only Cambrian complexity appears!!!

How does that prove that intelligent cells (possibly created by your God) did not design the complexities?

dhw: Shapiro’s theory would explain how organisms responded to what must have been a sudden massive change in conditions by adapting to or exploiting those conditions.

DAVID: Only if it is true and correct.

You have grasped a fundamental truth. A theory will only be true if it is true.